The Wharton Salon presents Xingu at The Mount

 

When Mrs. Ballinger and her oh-so-polite society friends meet to discuss the literary accomplishments of author Osric Dane, the conversation quickly turns to well-bred one-upmanship, with a twist. These elegant acquaintances are characters in Xingu, a humorous short story penned by Edith Wharton that’s being brought to life this month in a theatrical adaptation staged by the Wharton Salon, a new ensemble, in the drawing room at The Mount, Wharton’s historic home in Lenox, Massachusetts.

 

Catherine Taylor-Williams directs Xingu, scripted by Shakespeare & Company’s Dennis Krausnick, featuring actors familiar to those who enjoyed Wharton’s plays when Shakespeare & Company was in residence at The Mount from the late-1970s through 2000.

 

“It was time to reunite the plays, the house, and the women,” says Taylor-Williams, who considers the house itself an important character in the play. Actors Corinna May, Diane Prusha, and Tod Randolph are joined by Lydia Barnett-Mulligan, Jennie Burkhard Jadow, Karen Lee, and Rory Hammond. Daniel Osman is the lone male in the cast; he directed Xingu the last time it was performed by Shakespeare & Company in 1994.

 

Staging Wharton stories at The Mount represents a homecoming of sorts for actors and audience; to experience the famed author’s words in the same drawing room in which she once did, gazing across the terrace to the restored gardens … priceless. [AUGUST 2009]

 

THE GOODS

The Wharton Salon
Xingu
Aug 20 & 21 at 5:30 p.m.
Aug 22 & 23 at 10:30 a.m.
$35, includes day pass

The Mount
2 Plunkett St.
Lenox, Mass.